There was lots of time spent on books, toys, and games together. Owen thoroughly enjoyed teaching Granna how to play Angry Birds: Star Wars on her iPad, and Hadley loved having more people to search and find with her. (She's slightly obsessed with that currently and pretty good at finding hidden objects. A few times she'd not-so patiently wait for Grandad to finish his half of the picture or help him find things to speed it along.)
Owen even played Chicken Foot dominoes with us 'til the end of the game. I was amused at his arrangements of his domino hand. He didn't like the traditional, multiple row approach; he always had a lengthy single line that didn't really promote privacy. :)
It's always nice to share the bedtime story routine with other family members. The kids still love their books, especially new ones!
I was trying to have her re-enact this picture from my childhood, but can you tell she wasn't that interested? Not quite the resemblance I'd hoped for...
And of course, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and time in the great outdoors. The kids love digging around in the sandy soil and examining bugs, sticks, etc. that they come across. Owen remembered and requested the old, rusty dump truck from last time.
If anyone was wondering, the monkey bars and swingset from my childhood are still in working order!
A surefire highlight for the kids is riding in the tractor. In the seat or the bucket? Doesn't matter!
And probably our favorite activity is a good, old-fashioned walk on the trails, which sometimes need a little clearing. We have a couple of willing volunteers for that though, so it's never a problem! Even if they have to knock down a dead tree to ford a flooded path... Ahem.
It's always relaxing to get away from the noise and crowds and just take in the sounds of nature one step at a time. Owen liked the "walking club" moniker that we called ourselves and proved to be a pretty awesome hiker. They even did one by flashlight after dark!
Hadley also joined us a few times, although her walks were usually cut pretty short because "my legs are so ti-yud." I think her cold wasn't helping with her energy either. She was napping like a champ the whole trip!
Most of the walks started off to find the cow herd.
There were several new calves to observe, and the cows would just stare back at us.
Until someone made a sudden move their way! Moo moo!
But mostly it was just an appreciation of the bucolic setting.
With nearly 350 acres to explore, each walk was new and different. Some were on main roads, some on cleared trails, some on cattle trails, and the boys even followed some hog trails (so named because they are pretty low and narrow, probably from wild hogs). The sandy soil lends itself nicely to preserve tracks of all the comings and goings of animals. We like to speculate on which tracks belong to coyote, bobcat, raccoons, herons, mice, etc. and why/where they are going.
On one of the longest walks, we came across this pond in the far corner of the property, which Owen named Unexpected Pond. I love that name. They've had so much rain this winter, it might not have had water in it for a long while before this. Until next time, Unexpected Pond!
No comments:
Post a Comment